These Tiny Reactors Can Save Nuclear Energy

Nuclear energy's reputation is on the edge of meltdown

- Caroline Delbert

Often touted as a more flexible, powerful alternative to renewables, nuclear’s advantages haven’t outrun its dogged volatility. We associate nuclear reactors more often with disaster than innovation, but as the United States takes more coal and gas plants offline, engineers are hoping fresh reactor concepts could redeem nuclear’s stature in American energy. Bigger is no longer better. The future, experts say, looks like ‘multispeed’ nuclear energy – a combination of traditional large plants and smaller, safer megawatt reactors.

‘Until now, customers only had one choice for nuclear, and that was a gigawatt size power plant,’ says Rita Baranwal, the assistant secretary for Nuclear Energy at the US Department of Energy. ‘Now, we’re talking about reactors at the megawatt scale that can flexibly meet a customer’s energy needs as demand grows.’

Baranwal says megawatt reactors (one-megawatt powers about 650 homes) will be cheaper to build and operate, and could be sited anywhere in the world. A more context-sensitive, localised nuclear power industry – in which small towns, remote facilities, and big cities find nuclear solutions tailored to their needs – could replace a large swath of fossil fuel power stations, filling in the inert, resource-sucking downtimes left by renewables.